A poem for late summer

Photo by Thurman Couch, Pasadena CA

NOT YET 8 A. M.

I shuck

my sweaty clothes,

work shoes & sox, re-dress,

wash my face & arms & feet to

cool off.

Barely

a month into

my 80th year, I--

every third day, as my gardener

suggests--

water

the fifty new

plantings against summer's

heat. Thirty-seconds of wanded

water

into

the hearts & roots

of each--Knockout roses,

eleagnus, althea, crape

myrtle,

bridal-

wreath spirea,

redbud & yellowbell.

Like an old mule, I schlep the hose

forward.

Hoses--

all three of them--

make a 200-foot

red-and-green stream through the yard when

stretched.

Too tired

to move them back

to the narrow strip of

lawn where they stay, I give myself

a drink. 

c PL 2016

Mid-August poems

Mandevilla, several summers ago

Anna Pearl Couch's birthday is August 19. She has been in heaven for ten years.

in a wobbly hand

her thank-you letters--

83rd birthday

--from Connecting Our Houses, 1997

~~~

~~~

mid-August cold front

bringing the temperature down

to 90 degrees

--from It's August Already? 2003

~~~

back-handing the rose

to dislodge the walking stick--

now, knuckles with thorns

--from only sky and sand, 2005

~~~

getting together

more often for death

than for lunch

--from fishing in the clouds, 2010

~~~

heavy with water

the hanging mandevilla

barely swivels

--from the lighter side of darkness, 2012

Son Eric's beauty spot, several years ago

The sources mentioned (in order) include a flip calendar of haiku and senryu by PL and Dorothy McLaughlin, New Jersey; the others are monthly calendars made and sent to friends during the years they were published.

c 2016, PL dba lovepat press

Yucca - one of the long(er) poems in my new book, Hiding Myself into Safety

Yucca in Winter - PL

Yucca

Granddad must have loved       
yucca, planting it in front
of each house he built, even

the one for himself and Grandy.
Eighty years later, I betake myself
street-side at that ancient house

where—in the past—someone
planted iris, thinking to soften
the unfriendly yucca?

In early August’s coolness, I snip

brown tips of iris blades, yank

yellowed leaves. With gloved

fingers spread like hen’s feet,

I scratch away dead foliage,

 nested oak leaves.

Each old yucca--bottom dead--

I pull over like a naughty child (and there

the simile ends), sever each base.

Did I hear them sigh, as if glad
to be shed of holding upright
the newish green rosettes preening

like teenage girls waving at passing cars?
Several baby plants peek among the iris.
Callously, I yank them up, throw

on the growing pile of detritus
Even so, four passable yucca plants still
center the green and clean bed.

Later, I receive my reward: a tall bloom
stalk that eventually opens to an ivory torch.
Perhaps that’s why Granddad loved yucca.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~


PL c 2016